Col
R Hariharan
[This
is article contains points made by the author in two TV interviews on November
5, 2013 about Edward Snowden’s
disclosures on the NSA's worldwide clandestine surveillance of millions of
telephone conversations.]
The astounding disclosures of whistleblower Edward
Snowden about the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA)’s massive data mining
effort to access millions of communications of even friendly nations have sent
shock waves across the world. It has exposed the vulnerabilities of
increasingly net-worked electronic communication despite great progress in
securing them against snooping.
Surveillance of electronic communication and wire
tapping have a long and controversial history in the U.S.. After the 9/11 Al
Qaeda attacks exposed serious gaps in the U.S. intelligence gathering efforts,
the NSA launched PRISM - a massive electronic surveillance data mining
programme in 2007. Its ostensible purpose was to trawl terror networks across
the globe for information. However, the programme seems to have widened its
scope well beyond its original purpose to eavesdrop on millions of
communications of all kind everywhere, probably with official sanction.
At the start, the PRISM programme was being conducted
within the ambit of the Protect America Act of 2007 (PAA). The PAA removed the
requirement of a warrant to conduct government surveillance of foreign
intelligence targets outside the United States mandated by the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Its authorisation of massive information
gathering of public and private networks with an internal oversight procedure
became controversial.
Though subsequently the FISA Amendments Act of 2008
(FISAAA) replaced PAA, the new act incorporated many provisions of PAA. After a
lot of criticism, the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review
now provides the NSA a thin veneer of legality to conduct PRISM’s dubious
snooping operations including wire tapping.
Strong anti-U.S. sentiments were triggered when The
Guardian newspaper published the Snowden disclosures about the NSA's
clandestine tapping of telephone conversations of leaders and heads of states
of friendly powers like Brazil, France, Germany and India.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Brazil’s President
Dilma Roussef took strong exception to the NSA’s perfidious conduct
compromising the secrecy and security of their official and personal
communications. The U.S. government's official sanction accorded to the
programme terribly annoyed them. While the German Chancellor took it up directly
with President Obama, the Brazilian President cancelled a much awaited official
visit to the U.S.
The U.S. President, while visiting Germany on June 19,
2013 defended the PRISM programme describing it as “a circumscribed, narrow
system directed at us being able to protect our people. His claim that "as
a consequence [of the programme], we’ve saved lives” failed to impress the
affected nations. While Germany has taken it up at official level with
the U.S., Brazil has called for an international conference in 2014 to discuss
the issue. How India will respond to Brazil’s initiative remains to be
seen.
This is neither the first time the U.S. has spied upon
friendly powers nor PRISM the only such operation. According to Vikram
Sood, former head of RAW, the U.S., UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada took
part in project ECHELON to conduct electronic surveillance on its European
allies among others. Then why PRISM has created such furore? Were Germany and
Brazil overreacting? There are probably two reasons for it.
Snowden had disclosed that the NSA was also engaged in
hacking civilian infrastructure networks including universities, hospitals and
private businesses in other countries Documents leaked in the media showed that
many technology companies like Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, Google, YouTube,
Skype and Apple were roped in to participate in PRISM programme. According to
media assessment 98 percent of PRISM data was based on Microsoft, Yahoo and
Google. As most of the global internet communication passes through these U.S.
based systems, probably the PRISM has evoked greater international concern.
A second aspect is intelligence programmes like PRISM
should not be considered as mere intelligence gathering tools. They are part of
nation’s overall cyber warfare capability. They would play a vital role in
snooping, hacking, and compromising of communication networks of military and
vital national infrastructure.
India’s reactions to PRISM have been curious and
ambivalent. Initially the external affairs ministerial spokesman said any
privacy violation of PRISM would be "unacceptable.” However, the Minister of
External Affairs Salman Khurshid on the sidelines of the ASEAN regional forum
meet on July 2, 2013 defended the programme. He said it was “not scrutiny and
access to actual messages. It is only computer analysis of pattern of calls and
emails that are being sent. Some of the information they got out of their
scrutiny, they were able to use it to prevent serious terrorist attacks in
several countries.” Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s subdued response to the
issue during his meeting with the U.S President when he visited Washington
after the Snowden disclosures drew a lot of criticism in India.
The colossal data mining capability demonstrated by
the NSA will have far reaching impact upon intelligence gathering worldwide. An
important step towards denial of electronic snooping would be to reduce to the
dependence upon the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS) by developing
indigenous regional navigation satellite system. So far only the U.S., Russia,
and China have their own domestic satellite navigation system. It is heartening
to note that India has taken the first step to overcome this weakness by
launching the first of a cluster of seven IRNSS satellites in July 2013. This
navigation system costing Rs 1600 crores will be made up of seven satellites
named IRNSS-1A to IRNSS-1G. It will provide India's own domestic navigation
system when completed by 2015-16.
India had been using electronic surveillance as an
effective tool of its national security effort for quite some time. It was
electronic surveillance that successfully eavesdropped on General Pervez
Musharraf’s conversation with Lt General Mohammed Aziz Khan during the Kargil
War to confirm Pakistan army’s involvement in the conflict. Pakistani
terror groups like Lashkar-e-Tayabba (LeT) has been using social networks like
FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube etc. for quite some time. And India is LeT’s main
target. So, electronic surveillance will continue to be an essential arm in
India’s battle against terrorism.
The PRISM experience has shown extensive misuse of its
capability in spite of oversight procedures in place. It also shows how the
government can distort such operations to suit their political purpose. There
are also moral, ethical and legal grounds on which clandestine wire tapping and
related electronic data mining have been criticized. The whole PRISM episode
has demonstrated the need for greater accountability, independent auditing and
legislative monitoring of the entire chain of actions in surveillance
programmes.
There is no doubt that electronic surveillance systems
intrude upon individual’s right to privacy and curb his freedom of
communication. While no democratic government can ignore such concerns, these
have to be balanced against threats to national security from terrorism and
globalised trafficking in arms, drugs and people. So India has no other option
but to strengthen its electronic surveillance capability. At the same time, we
need to tighten the accountability of intelligence agencies through independent
auditing of their surveillance activities and effective oversight procedures.
Courtesy:
South Asia Analysis Group Paper No. 5598
dated 11 November 2013 http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/node/1399
